


The Red Moon

by nosefIower



Series: The Croods: Misadventures of the Betterman Farm Season 1 [5]
Category: Dawn of the Croods (Cartoon), The Croods (Movies), The Croods: A New Age (Movies)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Issues, Fluff and Humor, Funny, Gen, Humor, Pack Family, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Sitcom, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29169177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosefIower/pseuds/nosefIower
Summary: The Croods: Misadventures of the Betterman FarmSeason 1Episode 5: The Red MoonDawn continues her plan to get her parents together by convincing the pack to tell love stories at a family bonding fire. Gran tells the story of how she became the Queen Matriarch of a Warrior Tribe of Womens! The Bettermans may or may not explain...how they met?
Relationships: Belt/Sash (The Croods), Eep/Guy (The Croods), Grug/Ugga (The Croods), Hope/Phil (The Croods), Mr.Betterman/bitter beans (The Croods), Ms.Betterman/Mr.Betterman (The Croods), Thunk/window (The Croods), banana bros (The Croods), thunder sisters (The Croods) - Relationship
Series: The Croods: Misadventures of the Betterman Farm Season 1 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094084
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	The Red Moon

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoy this installment of the Misadventures of the Betterman Farm - I wanted to note that we've lost someone very dear to the pack this week with the passing of Gran's voice actor, Cloris Leachman. This episode is dedicated to her, she will always be remembered as a Queen Matriarch in both her youth and old age and the most iconic prehistoric gran in animation! enjoy~

“Phase 1 of get-Dawn’s-parents-back-together complete,” Dawn announced turning to her sheets of leaves she had elaborately arranged on the walls of the panic cubby 2.0 which was sprawled with lines, diagrams, and markings everywhere, “nice work Eep and Guy on hooking Sash and Belt onto my parents the other day,”

“Boom,” Eep said turning to Guy

“Boomsies,” he said back returning the fistbump

“Boomsies,” Sandy repeated

“Did you hear that?!” Grug repeated excitedly, “Sandy said boomsies again, that’s my little girl,” he said nuzzling his daughter’s nose to which she bit back

Ugga pulled the feral child off his face, “don’t taunt her fight reflexes!” she hissed trying to get the snarling child to settle

“Do we have to do this, this early in the morning?” Thunk whined viewing the presentation from his travel window, “the chicken seal hasn’t even crowed yet,”

“Yes!” Dawn hissed, she was doing that more often these days, “Mom and dad have been waking up even earlier to start their morning routine bickers so we only have the time before that to regroup and work out the plan,”

“Those two never shut up,” Gran muttered, “woke me up before the sun broke into the sky yesterday, something about the invention Guy throws fruit down overflowing,”

“Yeah, whatever is that invention for?” Guy asked

“Back to the drawing board!” Dawn said slamming the wall to break up the chatty cavemen, “we still have phase 2, 3, 4 and last resort,”

“What's last resort?” Eep asked

Dawn looked around nervously, “...we’ll get to that when we...get to that…”

“Okay then,” Eep said, easily shrugging the mystery of “last resort” off, “what’s phase 2 sister sunset?” Eep asked with a smirk as her eyes gleamed

Dawn grinned, “Oooh, how’s your storytelling?” she asked with a fire in her eye and Eep was beginning to think her friend was becoming more deserving of the Thunder Sister name “Fire heart” with each passing day

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Woman!" Phil yelled, searching rapidly through all the cabinets of the kitchen, "where are my bitter beans?!" 

Ms.Betterman sat at the kitchen table nonchalantly sipping on some hot bitter leaf juice she had made watching Mr.Betterman’s commotion with a guilty pleasure, "oh those?" she taunted as the rest of the pack came into the dining. The Croods had no idea why the Betterman couple still insisted they all have breakfast together when every morning began with an argument,"can't remember," she answered, shrugging her shoulders in delight. She got up to walk past the pack coming in so she could whisper to the women, "we may have that new energizing bitter bean bath in the ice cave," she winked 

"What was that?!" Phil remarked

"They're just beans Mr.Bitterman," Hope mocked

"Mr.Bitterman?!" Phil said in shock, "why I'm not-!"

"Hey Mr.Bitterdad!" Thunk said walking into the room holding Douglas, "could you make some more bronana skirts? Douglas really liked them, didn't you Douglas?" Thunk said, rubbing his pet, “now, who's a good boy?”

Douglas wailed his tail and gave a little bark in response

Dawn took the interruption of her parents argument to her advantage, "Ahem-" she started, "I was thinking we should have a bonding fire tonight,"

"Oooh, a bonding fire," Hope said excitedly looking at Gran, "we haven't had one of those since…" then she turned bitterly towards her modern husband

Before Phil could start something up again Dawn continued 

"Then we should have one again!" she chirped quickly 

"We are still in the middle of a very important," Phil lingered on that word for a moment looking at the pack then turned towards his modern wife, "argument concerning bitter seeds and beans!"

"Can you two hold your fire for one moment!" Dawn yelled coming between her parents, "whatever happened to our new unofficial motto?"

"Rat babies are human babies too?" Hope offered 

"No," Dawn said flatly as Sandy perked up

"A banana a day keeps the monkeys away?" Phil offered 

"No," Dawn said flatly again

"Hmmm…" Phil said stroking his chin and tried again, "a banana a day keeps the caveman at bay"

"Dad! We don't use that language anymore," Dawn said embarrassed

"It's a term of endearment," Phil tried to defend, "right Gruggers?" he asked turning in the direction of his bro

The Gruggers in question didn't answer knowing fully well not to get in between the Bettermans domestic arguments and Guy shrunk a little recalling when he had called Eep a cavegirl

Hope offered up another motto, "Don't clog the flusher?" she said glaring at Phil

"It was one time!" He defended, "Grug and I made some bronana quiches and they did not agree with me!" he said as his face flushed red with embarrassment

"How about Phil Betterman is so smart he's stupid?" Hope said giving her final offer

"No to all of those!" Dawn yelled, "That the pack stays together," and with that she took a stance and placed her hands firmly on her hips

The Bettermans looked at their daughter, then at the rest of the clan, then at each other, then back at their daughter 

"I suppose, perhaps…" Phil began, "we can come to an agreement?" Phil offered his wife 

Hope pondered the offer for a moment, "fine, another truce she said," holding out her hand and just as Phil returned his hand she added, "which begins promptly at sundown and ends at sunset, not a moment before, not a moment after" and she shook his hand firmly gripping tightly before letting go

"Great!" Dawn chimed, "see you at sunset" she called out and skipped out the room. The whole clan watched as the prancing girl disappeared from the kitchen 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dawn sat at the ledge of the tallest part of the treehouse looking out into the horizon at the fields that were once blocked by the wall. She sat in thought, her parents arguments bothering her a bit more than usual although she wouldn’t admit to it

“Were they always like this?” Guy asked walking up onto the roof of the hut sensing Dawn needed someone to talk to

Dawn turned around, broken out of her daze, “oh, hey Guy,”

“Hey,” Guy said but not in his usual manner when talking to Eep then he paused for a moment and leaned towards the ledge resting his forearms so he too could look out onto the horizon, “remember when we were kids and they didn’t talk to each other for a week, something about Mr.Betterman washing a red tunic with Ms.Betterman’s favorite white linens,”

“But you always looked so good in pink!” Dawn mimicked recalling the argument from many years ago and the two broke out into a fit of laughter. After which she recollected herself and looked around, finding Guy with the absence of a certain someone strange, “Hey, where’s Eep?” she asked

“Oh, she’s on her way up,” Guy grinned and as if on cue Dawn heard the rustles of a body climbing the tree just as Eep jumped over the ledge and into the conversation

“Hey friend girl!” Dawn said excitedly as if having another girl on the farm was something she would never not find new and exciting

“Hey!” Eep squealed, “what were you two talking about?”

Dawn and Guy looked at each other and giggled, “just some old stories,” they said together

“Dawn’s parents argued a lot when we were kids too,” Guy explained

“Like the time dad accidentally turned mom’s favorite white dress pink,” Dawn said

“Or the time Ms.Betterman first harvested bitter beans and Mr.Betterman was up all night,” Guy added

Dawn giggled at the story she had forgotten, “Or!” she said remembering another, “the time dad brought a hippodonkey cub home thinking it was abandoned and its mom came later in the day to find it…”

Now the three were in a fit of giggles recalling memories from their childhood and Eep on hearing them. The three stayed there for some time, retelling stories and memories from their past lives until the sky began to turn a fiery orange and a blazing pink

“We should get going,” Guy said looking out onto the sky, he then put a hand on Dawn’s shoulder, “don’t worry, your parents will be alright,”

Eep placed her hand on Dawn’s other shoulder, “things will be better tomorrow, unofficial motto” she teased looking at Guy and then back at her friendgirl, and with that, both Eep and Guy leaned in to kiss Dawn on the cheek to which Dawn blushed with gratitude for comforting her

The three got up and Guy began walking down the steps and looked back at the girls

“You, go ahead,” Eep said, “there’s something I want to talk to Dawn about,” Guy nodded and left

Eep waited for a few moments for Guy’s steps to fade before turning her head mischievously towards Dawn, “guess what?” she asked her girlfriend with a squeal

“What?” Dawn squealed back

“Guy and I are building our own little treehouse!” Eep chirped pointing out to the farm in the general direction of the tree 

Dawn gasped in delight, “are you going to have a flower garden?” she asked

“Yep! And butterflies!” Eep added delighted

“And-!” Dawn paused in excitement, “it’s right next to the sweet babbling brook!” noticing the tree with the largest amount of foliage, “This is amazing! Oh my gosh, I don’t even know what to say!” she babbled

The two girls looked at each other giddily relishing in their girl talk as their voices became more and more high pitched until they both let out a celebratory “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” in unison

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey-”

“Hey what?”

“Hey you-”

The pack was circled around Guy and Eep who were taking their task of starting the bonding fire leisurely. “Here,” Dawn said as her mother approached, “I saved you a seat right next to dad,” and she lightly pushed her mother to sit next to her husband. The two looked at each other, then crossed their arms and faced away from each as Eep and Guy began another round of hey-ing 

“Hey guess what?”

“What?”

“I'm hey-ing you”

“And I'm hey-ing you right back-”

"Is this...how they would always start the fire?" Phil questioned pointing with a circular motion to the couple 

Grug sat on a log looking as annoyed as he always did whenever a round of hey-ing was going on. He tapped his foot impatiently and nodded 

“I think it’s cute,” Dawn said looking happily at her childhood friend and friend girl clumsily clack rocks

“Hey,” Eep began again as a tiny spark was created, fell onto the twigs meant for the bonding fire and began to burn

“You did it!” Guy cheered and Eep leaned in to kiss him in her usual manner of catching him off guard

“JUST START THE STORIES!” Grug roared

“What kind of stories should we tell?” Ugga asked just as Dawn had instructed her to do at the morning morning in the panic cubby 2.0

“Love stories!” Dawn suggested persuasively as if the idea hadn’t been in her mind all day

“We’ll go first,” Guy bubbled as Eep finally released his lips from hers although with the way the couple was eyeing each other it didn’t look like they were exactly in the mood to tell stories, “first there was this fire, and I was a warthog,” he fumbled with his words as if stung by a rhinobee making him all giddy and as Grug would say - useless, “she dropped a rock on me, best day of my life…” he paused to stare at his tiger girl, “then we dropped a rock on the monster, I was a banana!” he flailed his arms as if orchestrating the story, “then she kissed me,” he finished

“Like this,” Eep said once again pulling Guy close

She released, “Yeah, like that,” he said drunkenly as if having drunk a cup of fermented shark milk 

The pack just stared at the boyhog rendered useless by love who was usually known for being a great storyteller, “Great job babe,” Eep said complimenting his story and pulled her boyhog into her lap to listen to the rest of the pack

Dawn grinned, they had acted out the honeymoon couple madly in love roles perfectly, “Great!” she chirped, clapping her hands together, “ Who has another story?”

“Oooh!” Sash cooed, raising a long arm with the other one wrapped around Belt. What followed was a series of coos, purrs, whirs, and a few ‘ooooh la la’s with some ‘dun’, ‘dun’, and ‘duns’ thrown in here and there as the two sloths recounted their story with much emotion and arm motions. At the end of which they turned to the crowd and finished with, “dun dun dun!”

The whole pack stared blankly at them except Guy and Dawn

“That was...so beautiful!” Guy said with tears of joy in his eyes

“My Sash is growing up so fast!” Dawn agreed, also overcome with happy tears, “alright,” she said, snapping back into the plan, “who’s next?”

“What about you two,” Ugga suggested on cue looking at Dawn and then at the Bettermans, “how did you two... meet?” she asked carefully

The Bettermans looked at each other wide eyed, “Oh, we don’t need to talk about that,” Hope tried to shrug off

“Indeed we don’t,” Phil echoed bitterly

“Besides,” Hope said looking sharply at her husband, “I’m sure you two have a really... interesting,” she said with some doubt, “ love story you’d like to share,”

“Naw,” Ugga said, “super boring”

“Yeah,” Grug began on his cue of the charade

“I thought he was a predator trying to kill us,” Ugga mentioned

“So she threw a rock at me so hard it cracked in half…” Grug continued reminiscing on the moment, “it was the best day of my life…”

“And that was our first kill circle together,” Ugga noted

“We’ve been chasing each other like predator and prey ever since,” the caveman concluded taking the cave woman's hands and looking deeply in her eyes

“He’s the prey,” Gran muttered

The Bettermans gave each other a quick look that meant, “do all this family’s love stories have to do with rocks?” and in their silent glances, and despite their feud, they shared a quick giggle amongst the two

“Now, how about you share?,” Ugga insisted kindly looking at the Bettermans

“What about we hear a story from Gran instead?” Hope diverted 

“I was in love once,” Gran started, “He was a hunter, I was a gatherer…” 

“Not that one,” Hope said, “I want to hear a Thunder Sister story,” Hope could tell her daughter was about to protest for her going off topic, so she added, “I’ll only share my side of the Betterman story if Gran gives us a story from her days of being Queen Matriarch,”

“Now you’re talking ice lady!” Gran said and began her tales of yore, “Listen up Thunder Sisters!” and the women as well as Thunk all excitedly leaned in, “...and banana men” she added, “let me tell you the story of how I became the Queen Matriarch of a Warrior Tribe of Womens!”

The clan gasped and Dawn was completely immersed in the story

“My first true love,” Gran began, “was the thrill of it all!” the look in Gran’s eyes showed she had been plunged back into the past and suddenly a certain wind howled through her hair and Wigasus gave a little shriek, “We were a small clan back then my sisters and I! We rode through canyons! And deserts! And forests! on the backs of owl bears!” she paused for dramatic effect, “We sought adventure at every turn, we faced down danger, and kicked death in the crotch! Then me and my sisters came across a shallow ravine on a stormy rainy night...we tried to cross it but the current was too strong and we were pulled away from the shore and each other!”

“No!” Dawn shouted

“What happened next?!” Hope asked mirroring her daughter’s emotions

“We all woke up together on the shore of a strange island, it looked like paradise...” Gran reminisced, “we explored it throughout the day but no signs of anyone else...that is, until night fell!” Gran declared and Wigasus howled

“What happened at night?!” Dawn and Hope asked together

“At night,” Gran continued, “we heard a rustle from the foliage all around us and as soon as we did, a large tribe of warrior women all emerged from the night on the backs of all sorts of beasts! They rode owlbears! And scorpionlions! And kangadillos!”

“Woah!” Dawn gasped

“They even tamed kangadillos?!” Eep and Ugga asked together 

“Sure did!” Gran said, “Back in my day, I learned a thing or two about taming kangadillos too!” and Wigasus nodded in agreement

The entire clan gasped

“Then one of them approached us, their Queen!” Gran continued

“But I thought you were their Queen?” Hope asked

Gran smirked, “Not yet I wasn’t ! The Queen Matriarch approached us and welcomed us into the tribe, she said the island had a life of its own and only brought in those it found worthy! My sisters and I stayed there for many moons. The Queen taught us the ways of the tribe! All its stories, history and traditions! But she was getting old and one night she passed. All the sisters of the tribe held a ceremony for her. We put her in a boat, rolled her out to sea, and each of us shot a flaming arrow into the boat. As the last of the boat burned away and its flame disappeared, the moon turned red!”

Everyone let out a gasp and looked up at the moon in the sky that was glowing a light blue as if to remind themselves what it looked like

“Yes!” Gran repeated, “The moon turned red and chose me!” and its ray of red light chose me!

“It chose you?” Dawn asked in awe

“How?” Hope asked

“A beam of red light from the moon fell on me,” Gran explained, “that’s when an elder from the tribe gave me this here staff,” she said, holding it out, “and said I was to be the next Queen of a warrior tribe of womens! Then she painted my face and gave me the title ‘Queen O’Wimmins! And ever since the night of the red moon, we became known as the Blood Tribe!” Gran finished relishing in the story and holding her staff up to the air

“I thought you were the Thunder Sisters?” Hope questioned

“Yeah, Blood Tribe never caught on,” Gran shrugged, “Thunder Sisters was our second choice,” and she sat back down as Wigasus curled back into a ball on top of Gran’s head

“Woah,” Dawn said in awe and Hope clapped her hands in delight at the conclusion of Gran’s story

“Now you,” Dawn chirped insistently looking at her parents

The Bettermans looked at each other and huffed, they were about to protest but then-

“You have a truce!” Dawn yelled jumping up from her seat and glaring at her parents, something cat like in the way she did so as if she was taking on after Eep

“Fine,” the Bettermans huffed together

“Okay great!” Dawn chirped jumping back into her seat happily as if her outburst hadn’t happened

“It all started with a tree,” Phil began, “and an idea…” 

“Not that one” Hope said dryly 

Phil Betterman rubbed the back of his neck nervously as if unsure where to begin the story of him and his wife, and Hope looked at him sharing the concern, “the truth is...,” he began then trailed off

Phil lingered a gaze on his wife as the moon and fire illuminated her, the red and blue of the two lights lighting her like glows of fire and ice…

“Man is my maiden name!” he bursted out dramatically flailing his arms as if revealing a long held secret and finally releasing it “...she made it Better…” he carried on

The pack let out a gasp, even Dawn which made it apparent that her parents made it a habit to not tell her much about anything

Hope let out a quiet chuckle, “Hope Better at your service,” she said

“And Phil Man,” he responded, “she’s my...Better half,” he paused then added, “ nothing says modernity like a joint last name!” with a little jolt of his hand

“We combined our names once we got married, naturally the Better had to come first,” Hope pointed out putting an emphasis on the Better

“It was quite natural indeed...” Phil looked at Hope and Hope looked at Phil and, if for a moment, it appeared that the walls they had built between them were slowly being lowered...

**Author's Note:**

> Next week: The Bettermans finish telling their story! 
> 
> What is "last resort"?  
> What is the next phase of Dawn's plan?  
> How did the Bettermans' meet?  
> Is there really an emphasis on the better?  
> And will Phil ever find his bitter beans?
> 
> Tune in next time for these answers and more!
> 
> thank you for reading! if you have any story suggestion feel free to leave them in the comments ! :) ~ always love to hear from y'all ~


End file.
